


the rescue

by wafflelate



Series: Bat & Robin [2]
Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: ANBU Black Ops, Alternate Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Root | Ne, Shikako POV, The Hazards of Nara Techniques, Uchiha Shisui Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22206142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate
Summary: It takes a lot of effort to be in the right place at the right time. Shikako leaves nothing to chance.
Relationships: Nara Shikako & Nara Shikaku, Nara Shikako & Shimura Danzō, Nara Shikako & Uchiha Shisui
Series: Bat & Robin [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1530206
Comments: 26
Kudos: 832
Collections: Dreaming of Sunshine Exchange 2019 B, Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection





	the rescue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Voldecourt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Voldecourt/gifts).



> My beta was a little worried about it when reading the first time so I will say there is no graphic eye removal in this fic. Also, content warning for dissociation from the POV of the dissociating character.

Nara Shikako could have just saved herself. It would have been easy. She saw it coming. But. 

_But._

She'd already made her choice months ago. No, _years_ ago. Not when she noticed Shisui was a year ahead of her in the Academy and tragically, genuinely friendly and charming. But then...the first time she nodded politely to Uchiha Shisui as they passed by each other at the mission desk as genin. The first time she stood next to him to watch other people fight at their chūnin exam. The first time she got to put together a team of her fellow chūnin and Shisui's name came immediately to mind. The first time she saved his life, the first time he saved hers, the first time he made her laugh — 

A year and a half into the both of them being chūnin, they go on a mission together led by a jōnin. During their downtime, Shisui asks the jōnin if he knows how getting recruited into ANBU works. 

"I do," the jōnin says, like it's a joke, and Shikako guesses that _this_ is how one gets recruited into ANBU. By asking the right person. 

She could stay silent, but she knows what this is the start of and she's already prepared. Shikamaru (almost seven years old, now, and _so_ lazy already) should always have been clan heir anyway. She could afford to make herself vulnerable. She could afford to be a target. "I," she says, "have been wondering that too." 

She and Shisui go through ANBU Bootcamp together, side by side, pushed to their limits. She dimly recognizes the ANBU captains in charge of their testing — Wolf and Cat — but she keeps her head down. This is about Shisui. This is about the Uchiha. 

The ANBU seal burns when it's applied; Shikako vows to study it. She and shisui are put under the same captain, and Shikako picks the Bat mask. Shisui hesitates over his own mask choice. 

"Robin," Shikako suggests, her lips quirking behind her new mask. She'd cross her fingers if that weren't altogether too obvious. 

Shisui looks doubtful. "Robins aren't very scary," he says. He's very much a teenage boy. 

"Ah," says the old man in charge of ANBU equipment, "but it's the ninja that strikes fear, not the mask itself." 

"They are nice birds," Shisui says eventually. 

She misses his face when he has the Robin mask on, but being _Bat_ and _Robin_ makes their early ANBU days that much more bearable. It makes the dread that sits low in Shikako's stomach easier to ignore. It keeps her from looking over her shoulder too much. 

* * *

When Danzō approaches with an invitation to his special black ops program — specialized training and important village service all in one — Shikako accepts. It fulfills the clan's supposed obligation to send someone to Danzō's program. She tells her father over one of their late night shogi games. 

"You don't have to," her father tells her. She knows he's not saying this just for the sake of offering her an illusion of choice. He's saying: _The village cannot afford to_ make _you_. 

"I do," Shikako says, and puts down a pawn with a clack that betrays confidence she doesn't really feel. 

Her father is silent for a long while as they play. Nara Shikaku likes to give people time to think over their choices, likes to have time to think things over himself, and likes specifically to give Shikako time to elaborate on her thought process. 

It is, to his credit, incredibly tempting to tell him. It always has been, and she loves him for it, and she would love to have his help untangling the mess she sees unfolding before her...but she loves him too much to endanger him with any part of the truth. Most of it she can't even justify knowing, and what she can justify is likely to get him (and Mom, and Shikamaru) killed. 

Maybe at the end of this she'll be disappeared into a quickly-burned body scroll, but at least she won't take anyone down with her. 

He must see her decision to not talk projected clearly on her face or through her body language, because he sighs and then beats her in three quick moves. "Don't rush into things so much," her father advises her. "You need to have patience." 

It's criticism of the game, but it's also not. "I'll keep that in mind," she promises, and then she goes to bed. 

* * *

ROOT is to ANBU as ANBU is to general forces. People are vaguely aware that it exists, but not what it's for, who's in it, or what exactly they do. Owl-taichō is their first captain, and he's not in it and doesn't know anything about it. They run through a couple fourth teammates on that team and she would guess that only one of them had been affiliated with ROOT at all — whichever one had been sent to scout her and Shisui for the program. 

Danzō makes it sound like an honor. They're specially selected, they're important, they're trusted, they're being honed and shaped to strengthen Konoha's foundations and weaken Konoha's enemies and guide Konoha's future. 

There aren't as many assassinations as she expected. There aren't even as many missions as she expected. There's even some legitimate training, skills gained she wouldn't have otherwise. Of course, she and Shisui aren't canon fodder orphans. They were recruited with a certain purpose: 

"I was going to recruit Uchiha Itachi, as soon as he'd developed enough in the general forces to suit our needs," Danzō tells her the first time they meet without Shisui there. "Then they could have watched each other...but no, you'll do. You're loyal to the village above all else, are you not?" 

He does not know about the Yamanaka-Nara-Akimichi oath. Torifu must not have ever told him — but of course, she hadn't told her genin teammates, either. 

"Of course, Danzō-sama," she says. 

Danzō nods. This is the answer he expected. The only one he could accept. "I believe your partner is as well, but...I do fear his clan might lead him astray." 

She stays silent, as if she doesn't understand his meaning and is waiting for him to elaborate. 

"The Uchiha aren't the same as the Nara," Danzō tells her. "They've never loved the village. They've never had its best interests at heart. Individual members — well. You know Shisui is different from the others." 

She nods. 

"I just need you to make sure Shisui isn't blinded by his love for his clan." Danzō's tone is soothing and reasonable, a respected old man simply trying to keep a promising subordinate from making an unfortunate, emotional mistake. 

"I understand, Danzō-sama," she says. She's kneeling at his feet. She's looking up at him and she hates him but he didn't tell her to take her mask off, so he can't see it. 

* * *

Shikako and Shisui work two jobs: missions with Owl-taichō some weeks, ROOT missions the rest of the time. At first they have a handler, who she hates, then a senpai Danzō trusts, who she also hates. Then finally it's just them — with Shikako reporting on Shisui — and after their first mission alone, Shisui pulls his mask off in the changeover station and says, "Let's have dinner! My sensei and my clan teacher—" 

"I can't," she interrupts as soon as he mentions his clan. She wants to. But she can't. 

Not yet. 

"Oh," Shisui says. His shoulders droop. 

He's never invited her before. She's never sought him out in her free time. At first, it was because she didn't want to get attached. Now it's because she can't seem to be compromised. 

"Some other time," she promises and hopes there will be one. She lays a friendly hand on his shoulder — he's her friend, she needs him, this is only going to get harder before it gets better — and then she leaves. 

* * *

Things drag on and on. Down beneath the village, she and Shisui sweat and bleed in training far harsher than even ANBU would approve of. She weasels her way into Danzō-approved medical lessons; he tells her medic nin are basically useless and she professes a desire to learn how to take people apart. There are, she implies, a lot of very interesting uses for medical jutsu. 

Some of her lessons come at the hospital, but most of them are in ANBU or in ROOT, clandestine accreditation fit in around her numerous missions. She pays particular attention to transplants. Especially eye transplants. Danzō makes sure this material is available to her. 

"You've taken quite an interest in this," he says on one of his rare visits to the room in the ROOT facility where she studies scrolls and is lead through practicals on corpses and, sometimes, unfortunate not-yet-corpses. 

She has several diagrams of the human eye open in front of her. The ROOT medical library is small, but it has room for several high-level texts on the subject. 

"I'm sure it will be useful, Danzō-sama," she says. 

"Tell me." The fingers of his good hand tap-tap-tap against his cane. "What do you think of your partner? Is he loyal?" 

Danzō _already_ wears a bandage over one eye. It's always the small details about him that are most horrifying. 

"He loves the village," she says truthfully. 

"That is not what I asked." 

"He doesn't see what you see," she adds, more reluctantly. "But that isn't his fault. He believes in people. Maybe too much." 

"Hm," says Danzō, sounding satisfied with her answer but unsatisfied with Shisui. "Lucky he has you, then. You won't let him get into any trouble." 

"Yes, Danzō-sama." 

"Study well," he adds, and taps the diagram showing how to remove an eye from the socket with two fingers. 

"I will, Danzō-sama." 

It's a promise. 

* * *

The missions they go on get harder and harder. Danzō usually puts her in charge, and Shikako takes full advantage — she takes what she can on to herself and she orders Shisui to avoid using his Sharingan. Because they're not supposed to be from Konoha, she reasons to him and to Danzō. Because it's a dead giveaway. 

But really: because they keep being sent to do things he probably shouldn't remember with perfect clarity. 

"If you get in trouble, I don't care who knows we're from Konoha," Shisui often threatens, and she always leaves it out of her ROOT report. Danzō doesn't care for frivolous details, after all. 

"You should complete the mission," she always says back, but half-heartedly, and in the end she's the one to pull out a clan jutsu to save his life — isolated in the western Land of Lightning pine barrens she throws her whole shadow behind stopping an enemy from cutting Shisui's head off his shoulders. She can't control their enemy and she can't freeze him so she reaches deeper and deeper and deeper. 

She hasn't spent nearly as much time on shadow stitching as she should, but desperation is a powerful teacher. She hits eight vital points and the shoulder, elbow, and wrist of their enemy. A twelfth tendril yanks the sword away, assuring it won't fall onto Shisui. 

There's a lot of blood, but she can't feel it through her shadow. And she doesn't really feel anything, looking at this corpse hanging from her clan jutsu in a place where she's definitely not supposed to be using her clan jutsu. Some kind of urgency or panic would be appropriate, but it just doesn't come to her. 

Shisui gets up off his knees. "I think he's definitely dead, Bat," Shisui says. He's joking to take away from the strain of almost dying. And he's also reminding her that she should drop the corpse. 

She drops the corpse. 

He seals it away, even though that's usually her job. He says, "It's okay," and she doesn't know what to say back to that. 

Saying nothing seems easiest. 

Their mission is done. Someone will notice that the Cloud nin Shikako has just killed is missing soon enough. They head for home. "I won't tell," Shisui says on their way back. "No one needs to know." 

"You should tell. Danzō will like you more. It would be good for you." 

"It wouldn't be good for _you_." 

She turns to look at him during her next jump, flinging herself forward almost carelessly as she asks, "What does that have to do with it?" 

He doesn't reply because she looks back at where she's going late, having forgotten that they're tree-jumping towards Konoha at speed. She flubs the landing, unable to gather her chakra to stick to the branch while still concentrating on reinforcing her legs so her ankles don't break. It's been a long time since she's struggled to multitask at chakra manipulation. She hits a second brach and fails to catch herself again. 

The ground rises beneath her at a rate that should be alarming. 

Shisui catches her two branches later, grabbing her wrist as she falls past. It's all she can do to keep the sudden stop from dislocating her shoulder. She looks up and him and he looks down at her. "Poison?" he guesses when they're standing on the same branch. "Chakra exhaustion?" 

She'd come in no physical contact with the enemy. Her reserves are low, but not that low. "No." She doesn't elaborate. She flexes chakra against the branch beneath her, wondering if she can safely return to tree jumping. Maybe if they don't talk? Probably not. 

"How about a piggy-back?" Shisui suggests. She can't see his face, but he maybe sounds worried. 

She agrees. She wraps her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders. She concentrates on clinging to him with her chakra and he uses his chakra to cling back. 

It's like hugging a campfire, one side of her warm and the other cold. 

She wakes up. They're almost back to Konoha, and she needs to go the rest of the way under her own power if she can. "I can," she says, and she does, focusing on every jump and landing to the exclusion of all else until they've passed through one of the lesser-used ANBU gates. 

Because she was in charge and she's not bleeding out, she has to go report before she can go to medical like Shisui wants. Danzō is busy; she reports to their old trainer. She delivers the bare facts and nothing more, exactly as they've always wanted. It's easier than usual. 

Shisui is waiting for her in the hall where she left him, and he grabs her by the hand. "ANBU Medical now," he says. "I think she has a concussion or something," he says a little later. 

ANBU Duck is the one on call in ANBU Medical. He looks her over carefully. His diagnostic jutsu slips under her skin gently while she watches Shisui watch her back. 

"How do you feel?" Duck asks her. 

"Fine," she says. She's always fine. "I'm always fine." 

"Oh, I see, you're turning into Wolf," Duck jokes. His chakra prods her brain. It prods her eyes. He finds bruises, a broken toe, and a sprained wrist from her tumble through the trees. He fixes her shoulder, which had been sore-but-not-dislocated. "That's all I can find," Duck says. "You should come back if this hasn't cleared up by morning." 

He should be talking to her, but he's not. He says it to Shisui, and Shisui nods. Shisui takes her by the hand and takes her to their ANBU bunk room, the one they hypothetically share with Owl-taichō and their constantly rotating fourth member. It's ANBU Rattlesnake most recently, but neither of them are in the room. They both probably have things to do outside of ANBU. So does Shisui. 

"You usually leave," she tells him. He's had her sit down on the bed, and now he's stipping off his armor, undoing buttons with efficiency until he's just in the plain ANBU blacks. 

"I'm not leaving." He's taken his mask off, too. He's looking at her very closely, closer than he ever has before. "We're going to shower," he prompts her. 

They do usually do that after a mission. She takes her armor off too, slower than him because there's no real reason to do it urgently. She leaves it on the floor instead of stacking it in the designated place like he does; there's no point in putting it away only to take it out again. 

He watches her do all this and then drags her towards the team showers, the co-ed ones teams use when they're too keyed up from their mission to leave sight of their teammates especially while naked. They've seen each other naked before — there's no real room for modesty with as often as they've worked together — but they don't usually shower together. 

Shisui has to remind her to undress, to rinse, to scrub, to comb her hair, to find the replacement blacks and change into them. 

He has to hand her her mask for the trip back to their room. 

He _doesn't_ have to braid her hair, and she reminds him he doesn't, and he says he knows, but he does it anyway. 

Where did you learn to braid hair, she might have asked on another day. On this day, she waits for him to finish and then she goes to sleep when he tells her to. She doesn't know what it means that he pulls the blanket up over her after she lays down, and she's not curious enough to ask or even to stay up wondering about it. She sleeps; it's simpler that way. 

* * *

She opens her eyes. Everything is even farther away, but Shisui is right there. He's facing towards the door, mask-on, leaning back against the edge of her bed. His chakra is warm. He must hear her breathing change because he turns around to look at her and asks, "How do you feel?" 

"Fine," she says. 

"Better than yesterday?" 

"Sure," she says. 

He takes her back to ANBU Medical. Duck is gone. Anteater is there. Anteater has cold hands and cold eyes and tried to teach her terrible bedside manners. Danzō likes Anteater; Danzō doesn't like Duck. 

She should feel some sort of way about all of this, but she doesn't. She sits alone in the exam room and answers Anteater's questions and follows Anteater's instructions. 

"You're wasting my time and she's being difficult on purpose _again_ ," Anteater says to Shisui when it's over. She throws them out of ANBU Medical. 

"Maybe you shouldn't antagonize the medical staff," Shisui suggests. He takes her back to their room. He sits her down on her bed. "Will you be okay if I go get us food?" he asks. 

She nods. She can't see why she wouldn't be fine. 

He leaves. 

She idly tracks his chakra for awhile, but it moves farther and farther away. She drifts. She gets caught up in sensing everything and then in sensing nothing, the spaces between things, the shadows that are the absence of light, her own shadow beneath her that goes down and down and down and down and down and down and d 

* * *

Her father's shadow could blot out the night sky. It could swallow the sun. He'd do both for her if she'd only ask. After his shadow comes his chakra, strong and quiet, velvet and noontime shade. Then his hands, which are warm and calloused. He sweeps a thumb across her knuckles and first she feels the scar across the pad of his thumb and then she feels that she has knuckles, hands to go with them, arms, a head, a face, eyes with which to look at her father's face. He's so concerned. He's kneeling in front of her. She watches his lips and he's speaking. He's saying, "Be here with me, Shikako. Stay here, Shikako. Come home, Shikako." 

He squeezes her hands. 

She squeezes back. "Hi, Dad," she says. 

"Whatever you did, you probably shouldn't do it again," he says. 

"Yeah." She nods. "I might have to." 

He doesn't like to hear that — no one would — but he doesn't disagree. He knows how things sometimes are. 

It's very early in the morning, she discovers when she turns her head to look out the window. The sky is dishwater grey and the songbirds are threatening the return of the sun still. She and her father are downstairs in her dad's office rather than in her room, probably to keep from waking Shikamaru up. 

"I think I want a shower." She feels like it's been a few days since she showered, but thanks to Shisui she doesn't have any post-mission grime. 

"Good," Shikaku says. "I'll set it up for you." 

From experience, they both know that Shikako can't be trusted to set the temperature of her own shower after an accident with their clan jutsu. 

Shikako goes to her room to collect a change of clothes, consciously _not_ using chakra to sneak because her father will notice and frown at her if she does. She stops outside of Shikamaru's room and stands there feeling his chakra until the sound of the shower turning on reminds her what she's supposed to be doing. 

The shower is tepid and the showerhead is set to its most gentle setting. Eventually she remembers to rinse off, towel-dry, get dressed, and go downstairs. Her dad has made rice and miso soup and tea, and he quirks his lips at her obvious surprise. 

"I don't have your mom's skill, but I can do this much," he says dryly. 

There's no fish, but she doesn't really _want_ fish anyway, and the best part of the meal is sitting across the table from her father while he drinks tea and reads paperwork he's probably put off to take care of her. 

"I need to spend more time on the clan techniques," she says after the meal, at which point she can hear her mother upstairs trying to hassle Shikamaru out of bed. 

Her father considers her for a moment. "It would be easier if you were home more often," he says. To her surprise, it's completely without reproach — simply a statement of fact. 

It makes her feel worse than an actual guilt trip would have. 

"I know," she says, devastated. Her voice breaks — shadow jutsu accidents are often followed by trouble regulating emotions. "Soon," she promises, and means it, and hopes she's right. Shikamaru will be eight in September, marking four years until he and his classmates graduate. It _has_ to be soon. 

"Not too soon. Don't rush." His reminder is gentle. "You've got a good ally in Kakashi, but he's young too. Move slow, Shikako. We'll be here no matter when you finish." 

* * *

Her father tells her Hatake Kakashi was the one to bring her to his office, still wearing most of her ANBU blacks and completely unresponsive. He doesn't otherwise ask any questions or hint that he wants answers, for which Shikako is extremely grateful She gets to spend a week and a half at home recovering her equilibrium: playing shogi with Shikamaru, cooking with her mother, being guided through simple exercises by her father. She has down time to work on sealing, although no chance to test anything, it's...nice. 

It's nice and it doesn't last. 

When she's back to being Bat, the first thing she does is seek out Robin. He's in their team's training ground, alone, and he's surprised to see her. 

"Thanks," she says. 

He nods, and they don't otherwise discuss it — even their own team's training ground isn't a safe place to talk freely. 

* * *

They're sent on a milk run a couple days later, picking up an intel drop from an undercover operative and leaving an updated mission scroll at the dead drop. This is one of those missions that's on the edge of things, possibly a legitimate ANBU mission delivered by scroll because the Sandaime is busy but equally as likely to be something Danzō wanted done. Shikako's long since stopped really trying to puzzle out which is which, especially for something like this. 

What's really important is that outside of the village she and Shisui can actually talk. And she picks the first topic — Hatake Kakashi. She asks, "You sent me with Wolf?" 

"I couldn't go myself," Shisui says, both apologetically and with a hint of challenge. 

He should have been able to take her himself. Someday things will be different. Some day she'll take him home. 

For now she says, "We should thank Wolf-senpai somehow." 

"...Yeah," Shisui says. "How?" 

"I'll think about it." 

* * *

On the way back, she says, "You know, Wolf-senpai is Hatake Kakashi." 

Shisui's rhythm on his next jump is slightly off. He hadn't known. 

"That's—" Shisui says, but he cuts himself off and doesn't add anything else. 

"Complicated?" she suggests. And then she asks, "Do you hate him?" 

Shisui is silent for a few minutes. 

It belatedly strikes her that this is probably the most personal question she's ever asked him. 

"I could thank him by myself," she suggests, although she probably won't. Hatake Kakashi is of no use to her at the moment if he's not going to also be of use to Shisui. They're a package deal. 

"No," Shisui says. He clarifies: "No, I don't hate him. He was allowed to keep the eye for a reason." Shisui pauses. "I kind of thought he was dead." 

Wolf-senpai did absolutely spend enough time haunting the halls of ANBU and off on missions to believably give that impression to the rest of the village, yes. 

"Did anyone," Shikako starts, and then she says instead, "Let's stop here." They're closing in on Konoha quickly, and she doesn't want to have this conversation anywhere they might be overheard. 

She lands in the next clearing, dropping to the ground with precision she's proud of — she doesn't so much as ruffle a blade of grass. Then Shisui drops down beside her, and she gets to study his form. It's good. But she shouldn't be distracting herself. 

"This is probably out of line," Shikako starts. 

Shisui nods for her to continue anyway. 

"Did anyone teach him how to use that eye you let him keep?" she asks. "Because there's got to be more than just looking at things, right? And...an undertrained bloodline can be worse than no bloodline at all." 

* * *

So they decide Shisui should offer to teach Kakashi about the Sharingan. It takes Shisui a few days to come to that decision, but Shikako doesn't push it — she just plans for what they'll do when he says yes. Everyone knows that the best thank you gift is the kind that keeps on giving, and ninja like Wolf will only understand them wanting to help him if they're actively getting something out of it. "His team burns through members almost as fast as ours," she says when it's time to explain to Shisui. "Because he and Cat take so many. He needs people who can keep up. And I heard Ocelot just left to lead her own team. So..." 

"So they probably need two people," Shisui completes, and then sighs, his shoulders slumping. "What if he won't take both of us?" 

Shikako has become increasingly sure that being on Kakashi's team is the best possible place for them both, but especially for Shisui. "If it has to be just one of us, then definitely just you. But I bet he'll take us both." 

"Fine," Shisui sighs. "But you do the talking." 

* * *

Shikako likes their new team. She especially likes watching Wolf-taichō and Shisui relax around each other. They had never really come to trust Owl-taichō the way they should have, she realizes belatedly. He had been a fine captain, but rigid and impersonal and frequently absent. Wolf-taichō is a livewire, electric and dangerous, but he draws them in. 

On Red Team, they're not just _a_ team. They're _Wolf-taichō's_ team. No wonder her father was pleased to think she'd been assigned to Hatake Kakashi. 

The most unexpected benefit to being on Red Team, though, is Wolf-taichō's sealing knowledge. It's not that he teaches her — frankly, he can't seem to even look straight at her sealing work, and boy is that a whole can of worms — but Wolf-taichō is a perfectionist. He can't help but correct people. 

He watches her try and fail to adapt the seals she has on hand into the seals she needs. He glances at her notebook, which she has made absolutely no move to hide from him. He says, "Stop playing by other people's rules." 

It hasn't exactly escaped her notice that her new captain isn't very into coloring inside the lines, and his phrasing is both bored and flippant, but Shikako takes the advice seriously. A month later she parries Wolf-taichō's tantō with a kunai and seals it away in the same motion. 

"My sword," Wolf-taichō says mournfully, and then he comes at her with jutsu in lieu of steel. 

She gives the tantō back after their bout, which involves plucking the kunai she'd parried with out of the tree it'd ended up embedded into so she can release the tantō from the seal she'd laid on it when she parried. Wolf-taichō snatches it out of the air before the chakra smoke can even clear. 

"it's not very efficient yet," she says, because there's kind of a _lot_ of chakra smoke, which is sloppy and embarrassing. 

"You'll get there." Wolf-taichō tucks the tantō away where it belongs and there's a slight pause. "Good job," he adds awkwardly. 

"You're the best," she tells him, full of genuine feeling. 

"Ah." He looks away, embarrassed. "Let's get back to work." 

* * *

It's not all good. Shikako spies on Shisui, and Shisui reports on his clan. There's a lot of unrest among the Uchiha, and Shikako thinks it sounds pretty justified, but she doesn't really have it in her to be shocked that Danzō twists things around. Of course he thinks the Uchiha are being unreasonable — Shikako is sure he's already decided that he wants them all dead. 

"What do you think?" Danzō asks her on one occasion, after Shisui leaves the room. 

This is not really Danzō asking for her opinion. This is Danzō testing her. 

"Uchiha Fugaku is failing to control his clan," Shikako says, which is basically true. "Something has to change soon. For the good of the village." 

Danzō shifts in his chair, sitting back in it with an air that signals she has answered correctly. "Something will be done very soon," he promises. "To that end...I would like you to attend further training. Bear will set up the schedule." He eyes her. "If you do not disappoint...I am looking for new blood in my personal guard." 

She smiles behind her mask. She keeps her tone level instead of pleased when she bows. 

It's not exactly going to get easier from here on out, but this is what she's been waiting for. 

* * *

"You're still on my team," Wolf-senpai says dismissively when she reports her changed schedule, her need to attend specialized training. "But it's about time for Cat and I to volunteer to break in some more rookies." 

Shisui will rotate through other ANBU teams. And get to spend more time at home. "You were offered special training?" he asks her later, when they're alone. 

She tells him she'll be joining Danzō's guard. He looks away from her. 

The walls have started to close in, but Shikako knows — without any proof, just _knows_ — that they're being watched. That she has to _watch what she says_. 

"I'll see you around," she promises. She means it, but she makes sure to make it sound half-hearted at best. 

"Yeah," Shisui says. His shoulders slump, and he doesn't look at her at all as she walks away. 

* * *

The training to be Danzō's guard is not easy or safe or enjoyable. Frankly, Shikako's not even sure it's particularly _useful_ , but she gets through it. She's always been good at controlling her emotions, good at focusing only on her goals and nothing else, good at quickly shoving away pain and disgust and everything else unimportant so that she can move forward. This is just more of the same, worse than any other training she's ever gone through but not so terrible as to outstrip any of the truly disastrous missions she's been on. She spits blood and she heals her own stab wounds but she doesn't even have to kill anyone. 

It could be much, much worse. 

When she's done, before she's even had a chance to shower or change or find out what the date is, she kneels in front of Danzō, accepts her new position, and is told she is no longer a member of Red Team. "You'll serve your village better at my side," Danzō says. 

In a way, she supposes that they agree. 

* * *

At first it's very slow. Following behind Danzō means a good deal of sitting in meetings, silent and concealed. It means a lot of wondering if the Hokage even _knows_ that Danzō has his own guard. Danzō is very specific in his instructions, after all: when the Hokage dismisses his guards, Danzō's guards aren't to move. If the Hokage issues orders, Danzō's guards aren't to obey. 

"ROOT," he says, "is solely under my command. Hiruzen and I agreed that it would be better that way." 

On one hand Shikako doubts that that's what the Sandaime meant, but on the other hand she can believe that if the Sandaime found out, Danzō could very easily talk him into keeping this arrangement exactly as-is — he seems to be easily talked into everything _else_ Danzō wants, except for "dealing more aggressively with the Uchiha" and even that last area of resistance is slowly being worn away. 

It's not that Shikako went into any of this with a very high opinion of Sarutobi Hiruzen. And it's not like she's shocked that this is the man she pledged herself in service to; she'd sworn herself into his ANBU with hollow words, pursuing a personal goal and knowing she would do absolutely nothing to intervene in the Sandaime's eventual death. It's just that the reality is so much worse than she imagined, somehow both horrible and mundane — _boring_ , and yet terrible. 

Also, it's lonely. On her first day on Danzō's guard he says he doesn't need anyone watching Shisui anymore, so now when she passes him in the twisting halls of ANBU's headquarters she can only look straight and ignore him, as if she's suddenly some other Bat, a Bat who was never his friend. 

Once, in the canteen, he sits down with her. She has to abandon her meal and stand up immediately. 

She has a goal, and the time to act on it will arrive soon. It's important. Nothing else matters until after she's saved Shisui's life. 

* * *

"I fear Uchiha Shisui's loyalty to the village has wavered," Danzō says to her. "We must protect Konoha." 

* * *

Of course, in the end, it all happens very, very fast. 

Shikako shadows Danzō to a meeting with the Sandaime to discuss having Shisui use Kotoamatsukami on his clan. Then, later, she leads Danzō to a meeting with Shisui — he's found her sensing to be very useful. In this case, she has to bring him past most of the popular training grounds, through the woods, to the training grounds centered around the old Naka shrine. 

Shisui smiles when she lands in front of him. Right up until he notices that Danzō has followed in her wake. 

She has to step back impassively and let Danzō have his doomed meeting. 

"I cannot trust the power of your eyes with anyone except myself," Danzō says, but Shikako cannot act until Danzō has committed bloodline theft. 

Shisui is standing alone in front of Danzō; she's standing behind Danzō as his guard, the only one of his four guards visible. The other guards have their chakra suppressed as far down as they can get it, which isn't far enough. Shikako can sense them still, knows exactly where they are, and has been planning exactly what she's going to do to them for longer than they've even known her. 

It's not their fault that they're her enemy, but they are. She's not sure she can fight them off on her own _and_ fight Danzō _and_ keep Shisui safe, so they have to go. It's simple math, the kind she learned from her father without even realizing it. 

When Danzō moves, Shikako's shadow has already crept up the backs of her fellow guards. Its already laid three seals there, unnoticed. When Danzō moves, Shikako is looking right at Shisui — and she sees the way he glances at her when Danzō moves, and then has to look back at Danzō to meet his attack. 

Shisui's Sharingan bloom and spin. He casts a high level genjutsu on Danzō. Caught in the periphery, Shikako only has to flex her chakra to disrupt its hold on her. Danzō, meanwhile, pauses for a full 45 seconds before a burst of dense chakra erupts in his face beneath the bandages. Then he's free of the genjutsu and moving again, and he's using hand signals to beckon his guards into joining the pursuit, and Shikako steps forward like she's supposed to but sticks close to Danzō because she _has_ to be close for this to work. 

Across the clearing, Shisui looks at her like she's ripped his heart out. 

Shikako begins to think she might have miscalculated some things, but it's too late now. She has her cover and she's keeping it. Even if she wanted to strike earlier, an unprovoked attack on Danzō would be worse than useless. 

She has to do this _right_. There's a _plan_. She has a _goal_ and neither her feelings nor Shisui's feelings fundamentally matter until it's completed. 

The three other guards get Shisui backed into a corner. 

Shisui falls to his knees. 

Danzō steps forward and takes Shisui's eye. At the same time, Shikako triggers the seals on her fellow guards and they all drop to the ground, headless. She also steps forward. She also takes out a scroll she prepared weeks ago. 

What the plan needed to work, fundamentally, was for Danzō to take Shisui's eye but not get away with it. What Shikako required, on top of that, was that Shisui actually get his eye back. There was no way she was ever going to be able to fight Danzō for the eye and retrieve it, so she does not. After all — they're ninja. There's no reason to have a contest of strength when stealing the eye will do just fine. 

She activates the seal just as Danzō is swinging around to face her. He jerks his hand back, but it's too late — she takes the eye, his hand, and most of his forearm. 

What's left of his arm begins to bleed extremely freely. 

Shisui is still on his knees, clutching his face. 

She thought he'd be up and ready to fight by now. No matter. It's fine. Shikako will handle that too. She turns, stowing the scroll away in the same motion, and bending. She doesn't stop to talk or explain or ask permission — Danzō won't be stunned long, won't take long to reassess, might decide to die bleeding out trying to kill them now rather than seek medical attention and try to kill them later. Shikako throws Shisui over her shoulder, locks her arm tight over his knees to keep him in place even if he struggles, and shunshins away into the forest for distance before taking to the trees to sneak as quickly as possible towards somewhere at least slightly more safe. 

* * *

When she sets Shisui down, he scrambles away from her, as uncoordinated as a panicked civilian. Shikako backs off as quickly as she can without making any sudden movements and supposes she should be thankful Shisui didn't try to knife her instead. Shisui climbs to his feet and Shikako takes her Bat mask off so they can look at each other properly. 

It's been weeks since anyone saw Shikako's face. 

"Shisui," she says. "I'm sorry, I—" 

He surges forward, body language unaggressive. One two three steps, their quickness carefully measured so she'd be able to get away if she wanted to, and then he's wrapping his arms around her. Holding her to his chest, tight, like she's precious. "It's okay," he says. "It's okay. You changed your mind for me. That's what matters." 

"I didn't change my mind," Shikako says, a little offended, and then has to grab Shisui back tightly when he tries to pull back from her. "Don't be stupid," she orders him. "I was never going to let him get away with anything. I just — it had to be definitely bloodline theft. It had to be. Or else I wouldn't be able to justify killing him." 

"Kill him!" Shisui repeats, the words choked with shock. "We can't. The village—" 

"The Hokage won't like it, but he'll have to live with it. My clan will back me, and so will the Yamanaka and the Akimichi. Your clan will back you. And when Yamanaka Inoichi says he believes without a shadow of a doubt that I saw Danzō stealing your eye — it won't be a problem." 

Shisui tries to pull back again and this time Shikako lets him back off, but she doesn't let him go very far, letting her hands linger on his arms the way his hands linger on hers. He looks at her with his remaining eye like he's never seen her before. "Did you — does he want the Nara bloodline, too?" 

Shikako sighs. "No," she says. She implies, _you idiot_. 

"Oh," Shisui says. " _Oh._ " 

"We just need to find a place for you to go while I deal with it," Shikako says. "Back to your clan might be for the best, but they should be ready to fight, probably—" 

"I'm going with you," Shisui interrupts. "Put my eye back in." 

Shikako would love to say something confident like _I can handle this on my own_ but then she might accidentally convince him. And it's not that she won't do it alone if she has to, but she has a much higher chance of coming back alive if she has help. Speaking of which. 

"Okay," Shikako says. "But actually...we shouldn't put your eye in here. We should go get more help. Wolf-taichō will help. Maybe Cat, too." 

Shisui makes an incredulous noise. "You want to just go up to _Hatake Kakashi_ and ask him—" 

"Yes. We're his teammates. And you're an Uchiha who's just had his eye stolen. He'd do _anything_ for you right now. And his apartment would be a better place to put the eye back in than out here in the woods." Shikako tightens her hands in the fabric of Shisui's sleeves. "Trust me," she compels him, "I've been planning this since he approached us." 

Shisui leans towards her, almost imperceptibly. "Okay," he says. "Okay. I do." 


End file.
